In my life as a priest, I meet lots of people who are walking through various valleys of shadow and death. The couch in my study is a carousel of crisis. For many years, I assumed that these people coming to my study, these people in the hospital bed, these people on whatever edge, were coming to me because they wanted me to do something for them. I assumed they wanted me to give them advice. Isn’t this why I read all those shelves of books in seminary? And so that’s what I did. I held forth on the problem of evil, the nature of providence, eschatological time-keeping. And over and over again, in the aftermath of these heart-to-hearts, I began to recognize a disconcerting pattern: the depths of my wisdom failed to do much of anything to alleviate these people’s suffering, much less change their lives for the better.

As the years have gone by, I have (too) slowly discovered a better approach.